


In War

by eurydice72



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Angst, M/M, WWII AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-21
Updated: 2013-07-21
Packaged: 2017-12-20 22:27:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/892627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eurydice72/pseuds/eurydice72
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>WWII AU. Even in war, Gwaine could always find a drink.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In War

Even in war, Gwaine could always find a drink.

Or maybe, especially because it was wartime. So many men trying to escape the nightmare surrounding them. So many more angry and frustrated with the world they inhabited. The public places might have closed down, one by one, but they didn’t vanish. Hitler only drove them underground, in cellars and front rooms, behind locked doors and cupped hands as people whispered instead of shouted.

Having a drink wasn’t quite as fun as it used to be, but Gwaine would take what he could get.

It was the only way he could get the dreams.

Sleep didn’t bring them, but then again, sleep was a sour mistress, storming off and leaving him high and dry at all the worst possible times. Liquor was his only choice, because it brought with it the dark spiral downward. Before the conflicts, he’d spend it in oblivion. Now, he spent it with Merlin.

It wasn’t the real Merlin, of course. He knew that. It was the Merlin the way he preferred to remember him, the gaunt, rattle-boned boy with the big ears and the bigger smile. Merlin had been smiling the day they met, the first day of school for both of them, and sometimes it seemed it never went away.

Another illusion. Because even without trying, Gwaine remembered plenty of moments when seeing Merlin’s somber face had been a knife in his gut. The most apt description he could slap on it, based on the voice of experience. He had the scar to prove it.

But that smile…that was what he needed. It reminded him of a world long gone, not this chaos that had been left behind. Merlin was always the one to be there when he needed him, whether it was to keep him company as he hid from another of his father’s tirades or to give him a cover story when the headmaster would catch him in yet another prank. He listened when Gwaine would rant about whatever had peeved him lately, and often, he’d have some brilliant solution that Gwaine wouldn’t have considered in a million years.

Once, when they were both twelve, Merlin had shown up on his doorstep and asked him to come. That was it, the only word he uttered. “Come.” And Gwaine went. Without question. Without curiosity about what it might entail. Because Merlin didn’t make requests like that often. That made it important.

It had been. His father had been beaten within an inch of his life. Gwaine had to help Hunith hold bloody rags to the holes in his body to try and keep him stable while Merlin tried to find a doctor who would help. When Balinor died, Gwaine was the one who held Merlin as he cried. He saved his own tears until after he went back home, where Merlin wouldn’t see them. Merlin needed him strong, so strong he would be.

At the bottom of the drunk oblivion, Gwaine could love Merlin again, just like he had all those years ago. It was the only way he could face him without shame. It was the only way he could see him at all.

When he was feeling particularly masochistic, he tried to recreate that last day. His attempts were marvelously fruitful. He always succeeded.

_“You’re mad, Merlin. You’re not a soldier. You’re better than that.”_

_“Someone has to do it.”_

_“So why does it have to be you?”_

_A shrug. A smile. He’d continued his packing without pause._

_“What about your mum?” Gwaine tried. “Who’s going to take care of her if you’re off somewhere else?”_

_“I was hoping you’d keep an eye on her for me.” Another smile, this one more devastating than the last. “Please?”_

_How could he say no? Even if meant losing the only person he’d ever loved?_

That had been three years ago. Seven months and two days after he’d left, a letter arrived for Hunith expressing sincere condolences in the valiant death of her son on the fields of France in the service of the king. 

Gwaine left London that night and never looked back. Except in his drunken dreams.

A round of cheers roused Gwaine from his stupor. He blinked blearily at the men clinking their pint glasses around him, then grabbed the apron of the tired waitress as she passed by.

“What’s that about?” he asked, jerking his chin toward the others.

She gave him a small smile. “A victory for the Allies. Somewhere in France, I think.”

His gaze lingered on the grins and broad faces of the strangers he’d lost himself in. Men too old to fight, boys too young. He was the only one in the room of service age, and yet, he was the only one not cheering the prospect of winning the war.

Gwaine reached for his half-empty glass and froze. 

Merlin would be so disappointed if he could see him now.

He made the choice like he made every choice—without thought, without hesitation. Rising from his chair, he tossed the money in his pocket onto the table, grabbed the waitress, and gave her a long, deep kiss. Her eyes were wide when he let her go.

“What was that for?” she asked.

He grinned. “No reason.”

As he sauntered out of the makeshift pub, he whistled under his breath. He had a promise to keep. A little bit late, and perhaps not the way Merlin had expected, but the time for remorse was over. Gwaine suspected that wherever his old friend was, he approved.

With a smile.


End file.
